This article analyses the development and implementation of policies that aim at improving the 'recognition of prior learning' (RPL) in the vocational education and training (VET) systems of Sweden and Switzerland. It argues that the evolution of RPL policies and schemes needs to be analysed in relation to educational expansion, which creates…

In vocational education, the learning content is often considered as concrete and specific, and the vocational learning involves physical work and interactions between participants and artefacts. Furthermore, one teacher has the overall responsibility for several students during classes in the vocational workshop at school, which means that the…

The concepts glass escalator and glass ceiling have been widely used in studies of gender and organisations. In this paper we propose a novel metaphor to describe and analyse gender segregation and discrimination, that of a "glass funnel." This concept does not relate to men and women as groups in the sense of fixed collective entities,…

Established in 2009, Swedish Higher Vocational Education (HVE) gives employers an opportunity to initiate state-funded but locally conceptualised and managed training programmes. This article investigates the system, the ideas used in policy to mandate this arrangement of vocational education and training (VET) and the institutional relations of…

This article presents an analysis of a team-teaching approach, applied in two learning spaces: a regular mathematics classroom; and a hairdressing salon at an upper secondary vocational education and training (VET) school. A mathematics teacher and a VET teacher jointly developed, planned and carried out the teaching activities in these two…

VET typically takes place at two educational sites: in VET school and at the workplace. The focus of this article is to analyse how Swedish VET teachers from three different VET programmes create 'sameness and continuity' between in-school training and work-based learning (WBL). Based on qualitative interviews with teachers, their work in…

The scholarly debate about cooperation between different stakeholders in Vocational Education and Training has primarily focussed on the national level, and much less on local and regional levels. This article aims to contribute to our understanding of the conditions and mechanisms of decentralised cooperation in VET systems, through a comparative…

This article examines how a virtual case that prepares students for practical scenario training affects police students' performance in a practical scenario training. This study included 69 Swedish police students at the Basic Training Programme for Police Officers -- 35 assigned to a virtual police case (VCASE) and 34 assigned to a conventional…

This article argues that women's vocational education needs to be viewed in relation to the development of vocational education and training (VET) more broadly. The history of women's VET is also a history of the term "women's education" itself and how, almost a century after it was introduced, this term is hardly used. Instead, we see…

Live simulations in which students perform the roles of future professionals or act as confederates (i.e. student actors) are important training activities in different types of vocational education. While previous research has focused on the learning of students who enact a professional, secondary roles in scenario training, such as student…

The study reported here used a practice theory lens to understand vocational education and training (VET) teachers' current practices in supporting integration of learning in educational institutions and workplaces -- specifically for refugee and migrant students. A case study was conducted with 10 teachers delivering aged care programmes in South…

This study scrutinises the production of bodies in skin and spa therapy education and training. More specifically, it focuses on how bodies are produced when participants are positioned and position themselves in classroom interaction and interviews. Drawing on a post-structural approach, inspired by Butler, regularities of description and…

The aim of this article is to investigate the learning strategies vocational students use to become part of a work community, and how these strategies are related to the formation of a vocational identity at the workplace. Conducting qualitative interviews, data were collected from 44 industrial programme students from six upper secondary schools.…

Sweden is internationally commended for a high degree of gender equality, but many divisions in Swedish society, including the labour market, disadvantage women. This paper addresses gendered divisions of preparation for civic participation in the vocational upper secondary national curricula, which may participate in reproduction of the pattern.…

In this article, we analyse a recent industry-driven initiative in Sweden for the organisation and operation of Vocational Education and Training. In the context of a statist and school-based system for VET, this is an initiative which seems to be an example of an anomaly in the present system. The initiative is called the Technical College scheme…